The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower was not the only person to disrupt the workings of Facebook. As reported byNPR, two years later a former data scientist on the social media platform, Frances Haugen, alleged that the platform knowingly spread misinformation, encouraged hate speech, and did the bare minimum to regulate posts in order to generate an inordinate amount of profit. In an interview with “60 Minutes,” the former Facebook data scientist said, “Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money.”
When Haugen came forward with her allegations, she submitted thousands of documents from Facebook’s internal system to both Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allege the deeply ingrained problems on the platform and within company management, according to Time. That year, she testified in a Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection (viaAP News) and made further accusations regarding Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s potentially unethical methods for generating ad revenue.
Alleging that the platform targets vulnerable users with negative content, Haugen said, “They know that algorithmic-based rankings, or engagement-based rankings, keeps you on their sites longer. You have longer sessions, you show up more often, and that makes them more money.” On Facebook, the Meta CEO denied the accusations, and wrote of his staff, “Most of us just don’t recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted.”